Waiting for God

Currently I am preaching a series on characters and how their lives unfolded in the hands of God. Last Sunday we looked at Abraham. I began with a question:

If I were to make you a promise today, how long would you be willing to wait for me to keep it? A few hours, a day, a week, a month, a year? Now of course it depends on the nature of the promise. When I promise Anne that I will do the shopping, she expects it to be done quite quickly. But what about the promise to love and cherish that I made 28 years ago this April. That's an ongoing, enduring promise. Making it through the first year didn't mean that promise was kept and after that it could be taken fro granted.

When it comes to Abraham, God takes 25 years to keep his promise ( it may have been longer if the promise was originally made in Ur and not in Haran), and even then the full realisation of his promise I will make your descendants as numerous as the sand would not be realised in Abraham's lifetime.

So let me rephrase my original question: If God makes you a promise, how long are you willing to wait to see it realised?